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Creating art always involves taking a risk. Art can be a platform to challenge and provoke. It can expose corruption or celebrate achievement. Art can connect audiences emotionally to a past that should not be forgotten. Or it can fall flat on its face.

This month, the University of Toronto undertook what should be the norm in all academic environments: It held a debate on gender identity and gender expression in Canadian legislation, and, more specifically, whether or not professors, or any citizen for that matter, should be compelled to use made-up, gender-neutral pronouns.

You'd think, given the volume of chatter in the House of Commons over the past decade, that RCAF pilots -- one of whom died Monday, tragically, in a training accident in Cold Lake, Alta. -- would be flying X-wing fighters out of Star Wars by now, and not a ragtag fleet of 1980s-vintage refurbs that were new when many members of the current Parliament were children.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can survive, and possibly even thrive, in the Trumpocalypse. But he’ll have to learn to channel more Stephen Harper. Yes, that’s right — Harper as muse. It has come to this.

From the Brexit vote to Donald Trump's remarkable ascension, one of the dominant themes of 2016 has been a global backlash against immigration. And the trend still may be gathering momentum. Cheering Trump's victory as a sign of hope, Marine Le Pen is considered a frontrunner in France's presidential elections next year.

Harjit Sajjan, a former cop, intelligence expert and Afghan war vet, got the rock-star treatment when appointed minister of defence more than a year ago. Sajjan was lauded as a "bad-ass," who made all his predecessors look like pencil-necked bureaucrats. A photo of him in combat fatigues went viral.

Even before Donald Trump hijacked the Republican Party, he was loudly declaring the science of climate change, like Barack Obama, had not been born in the United States. It was, he insisted in 2012, a Chinese hoax "created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."

A curious pattern has emerged since last week's upset by the Trump-Pence ticket, and the GOP's taking control of both houses of the U.S. Congress. Canadian leftists have begun appropriating Trump's political gain for their own purposes. It's a surprisingly seamless fit.